War Horse

Summary:  This takes place in England at the beginning of the 20th century. Albert is the son of a drunken farmer and a hardworking mother.  They rent their farm from a greedy landlord who is interested in buying a certain horse at an auction.  Albert's father outbids the landlord out of spite and brings home a thoroughbred instead of a work horse like they needed on their farm.  Little did his father know, this was the horse Albert had his eye on.  Albert names the horse Joey, and they bond quickly.  In order to save the farm, they have to plow a rock-ridden and dried up field.  Albert and Joey try, but they can't do it.  Once it starts raining, the ground softens enough that they get the job done.

When WWI starts, Albert's father sells Joey to the army to pay off the farm.  (A heavy rain ruins their crops from the field Joey and Albert plowed.)  Albert is devastated.  He wants to enlist to go with Joey, but is too young.  The officer who takes Joey ensures Albert that he was take the best care of him and return Joey to Albert if at all possible.  This is the start of Joey's journey, through many countries, families, and owners - none of which would I like to spoil for you.

OaTs:  This would be one of those films that I truly enjoy watching for the first time, but cannot really see myself putting on a list of my favorite films.  It was beautiful, touching, and epic.  I truly believe in the connection between man and animal, and I love watching films about it.  I'm a sucker for animal films.  I love horses, or at least the idea of them since I have minimal personal experiences with horses.  I find them beautiful and majestic.  So to follow a horse on his journey was a really special viewing experience.

I was expecting the film to follow Albert more than Joey, but it was the other way around.  The people that Joey met along his journey through WWI, or The Great War at the time, were unexpected, but very welcome.  I got attached to some of them, who took temporary ownership/care of Joey.  Even so much that I wondered if I wanted him back with Albert instead of another person.  Ultimately, though, Joey was meant to be with Albert.  And the movie made me believe it.  I don't know how they got the horses to convey these feelings, but it worked really well.

If I have one complaint, it's in the lack of screen time for Tom Hiddleston.  He's a new favorite of mine, having previously seen him in Thor, Midnight in Paris, and The Deep Blue Sea.  He plays an Army Captain who takes Joey to war.  Their time together is too brief.  Captain Nichols was an upstanding man who promised Albert to return Joey to him if at all possible.  Then Joey moves on to another person.  Then another, and another.  The temporariness of Joey's caretakers, though, was in great service to the ultimate meaning of the story, so I understand why Hiddleston's time on screen is limited.  I can be a selfish viewer sometimes.
 

Score:  8/10

Young Adult

Summary:  Mavis Gary is the author of a young adult book series.  It was once popular, but is now on the discount table.  She grew up in a small town in Minnesota and is now living in Minneapolis.  When she hears that her high school sweetheart has had a child, she decides that she needs to save him from his boring life as a husband and father in their hometown.  While trying to do this, she meets a former classmate who was crippled in a "prank" pulled by the jocks they went to school with.

OaTs:  Charlize Theron was fantastic as Mavis.  She really made you hate her and sympathize with her at the same time.  I really felt like I was looking at a girl who lived off of her status in high school.  She was even using those memories to make a living as an adult.  She never really grew up, which is why she thinks her former boyfriend needs to be rescued.  And he couldn't be happier with his life.

So Theron was great.  And so was Patton Oswalt as Matt, the man still carrying around a grudge from what happened to him in high school.  But that's pretty much where my love for this movie ends.  I'm not into dark comedies.  I don't enjoy laughing at awkward and painful situations.  I felt embarrassed for her, and that's not a feeling that I enjoy while watching a film.  I feel that's what the writer and director were aiming for, so they succeeded, but I didn't like it.

I'm glad I saw it.  Sometimes an okay movie is worth it for a great performance like this.  She saved it from a much worse grade from me.  I understand that many critics are loving this movie, and that's just fine.  But it's not up my alley.  I'd cringe when she guzzled her Diet Coke right from the two-liter bottle.  I felt bad for her dog that was left in her hotel room for hours on end.  It was uncomfortable for me, so definitely not something that I enjoyed watching. 

Score:  6/10

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Summary:  Based on the first book of the Millennium Trilogy by Swedish author Steig Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the story of a journalist and private investigator solving a forty year old crime.  Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), an old, rich gentlemen hires journalist Mikael Blomqvist (Daniel Craig), who recently lost a huge libel lawsuit, to figure out who killed his niece, Harriet, over forty years ago.  In exchange, Henrik will provide Mikael with all the information he needs to prove the story that got him in trouble.  Mikael soon enlists the help of a private investigator, the young girl who did the background check on him for Vanger:  Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara).  They dig deep in to the family history, full of Nazis and other sordid things, in order to figure out what happened to Harriet.

OaTs:  This has got to be one of the best adaptations I have seen in a long time.  I actually liked it better than the original Swedish film, which I did think was very good.  It was much more true to the book in tone - more gray, cold, and eerie.  I felt that Rooney Mara was much closer to my image of Lisbeth than Noomi Rapace in the Swedish adaptation.  And though I was hoping they would cast Viggo Mortensen as Mikael, Daniel Craig was an excellent choice.  He really played the part well.

They did change the ending a bit.  Not in a big way.  The answer was the same, but revealed in a different way.  I actually liked the new ending.  It was more concise.  The original story climaxes, then takes another twenty or thirty minutes to wrap things up.  This one only took about ten minutes.

It's a really gripping story.  I'm a huge fan of murder mysteries, or mysteries in general.  I have been ever since my love of Nancy Drew books in elementary school.  This one is really dark.  Really dark.  There are some difficult things to watch, including rape, torture, and murder.  I wouldn't watch this with anyone unless they knew what they were in for.  It's hard to recommend something like this unless I really know someone's taste.  I wouldn't want them looking at me like, "Why the hell did you show this to me?"  Yeah.  I'd like to avoid that conversation.

Funny story:  I went to the very first screening of the film with a friend of mine who shares my love of the books.  When we got our tickets, it said we were in Theater 3.  I found this odd because it's one of the smallest in the theater for a premiere of such an anticipated film.  I mean, not like Harry Potter, but the Millennium Trilogy is a phenomenon all over the world.  Anyway, we went to sit down and when the commercials came on, they were for Cartoon Network, PBS Kids, and other things of that nature.  Then the previews started.  They were all for movies rated PG or G.  You combine all of this, and my little red flag goes up.  I thought, "There's no way studios would pay to advertise children's movies at this movie.  The most UN-children's movie of them all." 

I knew they were going to play the wrong movie.  But I waited.  Maybe they just had the wrong reel of previews.  Then when the studio title cards started rolling, one said "Happy Madison Productions."  Yep.  They were showing us the Adam Sandler movie.  This was a Tuesday night.  The theater was packed.  We weren't there to see the Adam Sandler movie that had already been out for a month and received scathing reviews.  So I briefly explained this to my friend, Christal, and got up from my chair to tell someone they were playing the wrong movie.  A man in the audience tried to tell me it was the wrong movie and I told him that is where I was going.

I told the boy at the concession stand and he alerted the manager.  When I got back to the theater, the screen was showing the slide advertisements they show before all movies.  They had stopped it.  And the theater applauded for me when I got back.  I fully fill Christal in on how I knew and she agreed that the previews and commercials were odd once she thought about it.  The manager came in and apologized.  My theory is that they printed the wrong theater number on the stubs.  There's no way they'd have this film in such a small theater for it's first screening.

So that was my viewing experience for this film.  It started about a half hour late.  Then Christal and I stood outside the theater and discussed it for about ten or fifteen minutes.  It was a great evening that made for a great story. 

Score:  8/10

J. Edgar

Summary:  This film chronicles the life and career of J. Edgar Hoover, founding director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.  He started working for the government when crime scene investigation wasn't practiced.  Edgar grew frustrated with this, suggesting they were letting criminals get away with things.  His appointed second-hand man, Clyde Tolson, stuck by Edgar through think and thin, occasionally pointing out flaws in Edgar's approach.  Edgar's long-time secretary was the keeper of his secrets and one of the few people he could trust with everything.

It follows him from the time no one took him seriously, through the time he became the legend that he is today. 

OaTs:  When this film was announced, I was fairly excited to see it.  I have been a fan of Clint Eastwood, the director, and Leonardo DiCaprio for a long time now.  I thought it would be a great match.  And it wasn't a horrible match, but I have to say that I expected more.

I felt like it was trying too hard.  DiCaprio has always been a favorite of mine, but I am recently coming to a different conclusion.  I'm getting frustrated with the showiness of his performances.  I will always love him in The Departed, and maybe even Revolutionary Road, but I feel like he is going to have to do something really different in order for me to consider myself a fan once again.  I'd like to see him play an average guy using his given voice.  I can't remember a time I've seen him in a movie without a fake accent, except maybe Inception, of which I was not a fan.  His next role is Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby.  I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with that.

Eastwood has been letting me down as of late.  I was one of the few who enjoyed Hereafter last year, but it wasn't anywhere near his best stuff.  Invictus and Changeling were disappointments.  Gran Torino, on the other hand, was fantastic.  Anyway, I'm not sure if I am on the Eastwood band-wagon anymore either.

J. Edgar is a fascinating person, so I can understand why it was so appealing to make a film about his life.  I do feel, however, that there is too much left unknown.  I couldn't help but think to myself, "I wonder how much of this is true."  Since I'm a history nerd, I like to see historical movies tell the truth.  I understand that this doesn't always make for a good movie.  So why even make them?  There are some truly excellent films about history that are honest as well as entertaining.  If you're going to do it, do it right.

Then there was the makeup.  I keep going back to two films that used aging makeup to great effect:  Citizen Kane, of course, and La Vie En Rose, the latter of which won the academy award for Best Achievement in Makeup.  They realistically changed performers in their twenties and thirties into older versions of their characters and you didn't even think about the makeup until the movie was over.  The entire time that I looked at DiCaprio as the older Hoover, I got distracted by the stuff on his face.  Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson was even worse.  As Hoover's secretary, Ms. Gandy, Naomi Watts' makeup was pretty good, though.

I think that, once again, an effort to get DiCaprio an Academy Award has failed.  He needs to stop trying so hard.  With The Departed, I could tell that it wasn't his goal.  It was a movie made for entertainment and it happened to be fantastic.  In my opinion, that's a much better way to win awards than to aim for it and win.  Make a good movie.  If it's recognized, that's great.  If not, at least you still have a good movie instead of a failed attempt at Oscar glory.  All in all, a very disappointing movie.  I was hoping for better.

Score:  5/10

Shame

Summary:  Brandon is a man in his mid-thirties, living in New York with a pretty good job.  You'd think he had everything going for him, but he's wrestling with sex addiction.  His sister comes for a visit which makes his life much more difficult.  She is a singer who routinely visits when her life starts getting difficult, usually caused by a boyfriend. 

OaTs:  I saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival.  Before the screening, director Steve McQueen asked the audience just to "look at the film."  I found it a simple request, and one I was more than happy to oblige.  It was exquisitely filmed and acted.  There wasn't a terrible amount of dialogue.  This is because Michael Fassbender, who played Brandon, could tell you just about everything with his face.

For instance, there is a scene, my favorite in the film, where is sister, played by Carey Mulligan, is singing the old standard, "New York, New York" at a club in New York.  She begs Brandon to come hear her and he finally relents.  She sings it simply, quietly, and beautifully, unlike any other rendition of the song I have heard.  And the look on Brandon's face is something else.  I found it hard to tell what exactly he was thinking, but I knew what he was feeling.  I was equally moved by the performance.  Brandon had tears running down his face.  It was a beautiful piece of acting.

The sex addiction part is so interesting.  Steve McQueen is a British director, and when asked why it isn't set in Britain, he responded that he couldn't find anyone over there to talk about sex addiction.  He could find people in New York to talk about it, so he set it there.  It's a subject that I am unfamiliar with, because it is so hidden from the public.  It's funny to me that there were people in American more comfortable talking about it an less in the UK.  I've always found, in film anyway, that Europeans are more comfortable with sex than Americans.  I guess maybe it's the "addiction" part that screws them up.  I don't know.

It's not a film for the faint of heart.  There is a lot of nudity and a lot of sex going on.  I think I would have been more uneasy with it had it been gratuitous.  It wasn't.  It was necessary to tell the story.  You can't tell a story about sex addiction without showing sex.  It is rated NC-17 for a reason.  

I'm not sure that it's a film I'd want to see again, just because it is so emotionally draining, but I am glad I saw it.  I think it's easy for people ignorant on the subject to call people "weak" when they are addicted to something.  I can honestly say that I may have been one of those people years ago.  I finally opened my eyes to all of the different people of the world and have come to an understanding that there are things I can't attempt to understand for myself.  I refuse to judge others, as it is not my place.  And this is one of those films I will be able to recall as one that helped me to understand something a little better than I had before.

As Walt Disney said, "I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained."  To say that I was "entertained" by this film may be a bit of a stretch, but the film came across as more of a work of art than a lesson for the audience.  Every now and then, a film can come out that is more than a film.  I believe this is one of them, as it surely changed the way I see things.  And it do so without shoving a lecture down my throat, which I very much appreciate. 

Score:  8/10

Hugo

Summary:  In Paris at the early part of the 20th century, a young boy named Hugo, was taught to repair clocks by his father, who also repaired clocks.  One day, his father brings home a broken automaton he found in a museum.  He wants Hugo to help him fix it.  The father is killed in a fire before it can be fixed.  Hugo is taken in by his drunken uncle who works on the clocks at the train station.  After his uncle disappears, Hugo continues working on the clocks and trying to fix the automaton.  He steals parts of toys for his automaton from a shop at the train station and is caught by the owner of the shop.  The owner takes everything in Hugo's pockets, including the notebook of his father's with instructions on how to fix the automaton.

Hugo then makes friend with the shop owner's goddaughter, Isabel.  She tries to help Hugo get his notebook back after he tells her why he wants it so badly.  The thing is, even though Hugo fixes the automaton, there is still a missing key in the shape of a heart that he needs.  It happens to be hanging around Isabel's neck.  Once it is all put together, the automaton draws a picture of the famous George Melies silent film, A Trip to the Moon, which happens to be the first film Hugo's father ever saw.

From here on, the story takes a turn into exploring who the toy shop owner is and why this notebook meant so much to him.  I refuse to reveal any of the secrets to those who haven't seen the film, which is a shame because these very reasons are why I love this film so dearly.

OaTs:  Martin Scorsese isn't known for making family films, but he is known for his love of film.  This is probably the reason that I like him so much.  I can tell that he has a deep love and affection for film history.  Scorsese is also known for his work in film restoration and making sure that we don't lose the treasures of the past.  This comes through in Hugo, more than any other film he has made.  Films about film make me incredible happy when done right.  So between this movie and The Artist, I am loving the movies right now.

After seeing the trailer for this film, I wasn't interested in seeing it at all.  It was in 3D, which I had successfully avoided for the past two years, and it seemed to be a children's movie that I wouldn't really like all that much.  Then, after reading glowing reviews by Peter Travers and a critic at Movieline.com, I decided that it was a film I should try.  To claim that it's the greatest use of 3D to date, and that Scorsese makes it plain how much he loves film, I thought that I would be a shame to miss it.  Little did I know just how much this movie would mean to me.

I love film history.  I have a deep affection for old black and white movies of yesteryear.  So for Scorsese to explore the origins of film in France, and effectively tell the audience that the loss of these films is a devastating loss, was a pure pleasure for me to watch.  Not many people I know are aware of who George Melies is and just why he is so important.  They also wouldn't know that the poster to this film, on display above, is a homage to Harold Lloyd, a great silent film comedian.  This is yet another film that I feel was made for me.  I love it when a filmmaker can do that:  make me feel like this movie was made especially for me. 

Score:  9/10

The Artist

Summary:  George Valentin is a silent film star.  He is admired by all, and adored by upcoming starlet Peppy Miller.  She bumps into him while he is posing for publicity pictures on the sidewalk.  After her pictures run in the paper, she starts getting small parts in films as a dancer or back ground actor.  Her parts steadily grow once films add sound.  She becomes America's new sweetheart.  

George's career, however, takes a dive once talkies become popular.  He stubbornly decides to fund his own silent film, which tanks at the box office.  He is forced to auction his belongings and fire his driver/assistant.  The only companion that stays by his side is his pet dog.  His wife leaves him and he has to move out of his mansion.

Peppy is still drawn to George, long after years have passed since their first meeting.  She tries to help him get back into film and he rejects her help.  Coming to a breaking point, he finally accepts the changes in film a joins Peppy for a show stopping dance number.

OaTs:  I have wanted to see this film ever since I learned of its existence.  I love films about the film industry.  I love French films.  I love black and white films.  This seemed to have all of this going for it.  It was screening at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), but only before I was schedule to arrive in Toronto to volunteer.  I didn't get the chance to see it there, and was rather bummed because I thought the chance of it coming anywhere near the Shenandoah Valley was slim to none.  Guess I was wrong.  I'd like to send out a big "Thank You!" to the Virginia Film Festival.

My sister, Lisa, joined me for the screening at The Paramount Theater in Charlottesville.  It was the perfect venue for a silent, black and white film.  It was an old theater with upholstered seats and intricate detailing on the walls and ceiling.  And there was a balcony.  It's was old-timey.  It was perfect.  Even the presenter of the film said, "Somewhere, Samuel Goldwyn is smiling at people watching a silent movie in a theater like this."  Like I said, perfect.

When I have told people about the film, they seemed surprised that I, or anyone, would have enjoyed a silent film.  They obviously don't know me all that well.  I respect and admire film history more than I can express.  To be able to step into a time machine and go back to the cinemas of the 1920s and 1930s was an irreplaceable experience.  This experience almost means more to me than the film itself.

Anyway, I absolutely loved it. The acting was incredible.  You get to know these characters and sympathize with them even though they aren't speaking.  Their face tells the story.  You understand their feelings just by their body movement and facial expressions.  Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo played the leads to great results.  Their chemistry was incredible.

After watching the film trailer more times than any person should, I came to the conclusion that the film would be more dark than light.  I was wrong.  There was lots of humor and plenty of comedic moments for the leads and their wonderful supporting cast.  I was worried it would be too much like A Star is Born or Singin' in the Rain.  But it actually combined the best parts of both stories/films to great effect.  The drama hit a bit harder once you had been laughing.

I'm really hoping this does well come Oscar night. 

Score:  10/10